Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve gets only Seven Bids

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Oil companies this week had the chance to bid on 900 tracts within Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve but offered bids on just seven.

Only 125 square miles of the 16,100 square miles that were for sale were bid on. All seven of those bids came in from ConocoPhillips and Anadarko. Those seven bids totaled to $1.16 million, which will be shared evenly between the federal government and the state of Alaska.

The National Petroleum Reserve was originally set aside as an emergency oil supply for the Navy back in 1923. The land was split roughly in half between conservation areas and land available for petroleum development by a 2013 management plan.

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